1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display and, more particularly, the present invention relates to a liquid crystal display having a substantially improved response speed and viewing angle.
2. Description of the Related Art
Liquid crystal displays (“LCDs”) are widely used as flat panel displays. An LCD typically includes two display panels on which field generating electrodes, such as pixel electrodes and a common electrode, are disposed, and a liquid crystal layer interposed between the two display panels. In the LCD, voltages are applied to the field generating electrodes to generate an electric field in the liquid crystal layer, and an alignment of liquid crystal molecules in liquid crystal layer is thereby controlled. Accordingly, a polarization of incident light is controlled to display an image on the LCD.
An LCD which utilizes a vertical alignment (“VA”) mode has been developed. In the VA mode LCD, major axes of the liquid crystal molecules are arranged to be substantially perpendicular to the display panel when an electric field is not applied to the liquid crystal layer.
In the VA mode LCD, a viewing angle is increased by forming cutouts, such as slits and/or protrusions, for example, in the field-generating electrodes. Since the cutouts and/or protrusions determine tilt directions of the liquid crystal molecules, the tilt directions can be distributed in various different directions such that a reference viewing angle is widened.
However, when forming the cutouts, irregular textures are generated in regions where an influence of the inclination direction determination member, e.g., the cutouts, is decreased, such as near edges of a pixel area, or in region where mutual influences of the inclination direction determination members are applied, such as near a central portion of the pixel area. As a result, a display quality of the LCD occurs due to the irregular textures.
The LCD generally includes a storage capacitor to maintain a pixel voltage of the pixel electrode. When a gate-on voltage is applied to a thin film transistor of the LCD, charges are charged into the liquid crystal layer, which is typically an optical-electric active layer, and the charges are maintained until another gate-on voltage is applied to the thin film transistor. When changing from the gate-on voltage to a gate-off voltage, however, the pixel voltage drops. Thus, the storage capacitor reduces the pixel voltage drop to reduce a range of fluctuation thereof to maintain a substantially constant pixel voltage. Therefore, a capacitance of the storage capacitor in the LCD should be as large as possible.
However, when a size of a storage electrode is increased, to increase the capacitance of the storage capacitor, an aperture ratio of the LCD, e.g., a ratio of an area of one pixel through which light is transmitted to a total area of the one pixel is decreased.